Transcript Blow Out Your Blood Feraco Myth to Science Fiction 21 November 2009

Blow Out Your Blood
Feraco
Myth to Science Fiction
21 November 2009
Canto XII: Data File
• Setting: The Seventh Circle, Round
One
• Figures: The Minotaur, Chiron,
Nessus
• Allusions: The Earthquake,
Harrowing of Hell, Hercules,
Achilles, Alexander the Great,
Dionysius, Azzolino da Romano,
Obizzo da Este, Guy de Montefort,
Atilla, Sextus, Pyrrhus, Rinier da
Cometo, Rinier Pazzo
• Punishable Sin: Violence (Against
Neighbors)
Canto XII: Data File
•
Summary: The Poets climb down the fallen rocks until
they encounter the Minotaur, a horrible monster
prone to rage and violence. Virgil mocks him, and the
poets escape when the Minotaur leaps about in a
frenzy. They descend toward Phlegethon, a boiling
river of blood that marks the beginning of the First
Round of the Seventh Circle. Murders, tyrants, cruel
warriors, bandits – all are submerged in the blood
according to the degree of their sin in life. Those who
try to rise above the blood are shot with arrows by
Centaurs, half-men/half-horse creatures who prowl
Phlegethon’s banks. The Centaurs stop the poets at
first, but Virgil convinces Chiron, their honorable
leader, to allow them safe passage. Chiron sends
another Centaur, Nessus, to bear them across
Phlegethon at its shallowest point; Nessus identifies
those who were Violent Against Their Neighbors by
name for the poets, drops them off, and leaves.
Violence Against
Neighbors
• It’s one thing to be violent – a bad thing,
obviously
• However, a recognizable pattern
emerges as Dante recognizes more and
more of the sinners
• Most of these aren’t just killers – they’re
infamous for their audacity and cruelty
– In other words, they aren’t simple men whose
tempers got the best of them once or twice;
those ones head up to the Fifth Circle
– These are men who determine premeditatively to kill or destroy, and who reap
profit or enjoy doing so
The Punishment
• The Violent Against Their Neighbors must stand
in the boiling blood or risk being shot
– While it doesn’t seem like an arrow would scare a
soul that can’t die, it’s important to remember
that their punishment is supposed to be eternal
– The arrow wouldn’t kill them, but – like Cerberus
tearing at the Gluttons, or the Wrathful tearing
one another apart – it will damage them in nonpermanent ways that still cause considerable pain
• The blood’s symbolism is clear: you’re covered in
an amount that’s proportional to the damage
you caused during your life
– That’s why warlords like Alexander the Great stand
up to their lashes in it; they killed about as
frequently as a man could
The Minotaur
• He’s the Seventh Circle’s Threshold
Guardian and, as with so many of the
other guardians of Dante’s Hell, he’s
also a Creature of Nightmares; he’s halfman and half-bull
• The Minotaur was conceived in an act of
Violence Against Nature, committed
ritual acts of Violence Against Its
Neighbors, and it routinely commits
Violence Against Itself as it rages; it was
born of violence, and died violently
– It is in every way a perfect Guardian for the
Seventh Circle
The Minotaur
•
•
•
•
•
Minos’s wife, Pasiphaë, fell in love with a white bull, and
decided to trick it into mating with her
She asked Daedalus (an inventor we’ll hear about again
later) to construct a wooden cow that she could hide inside;
Daedalus obliged, the bull fell for it, and thus was the
monstrous Minotaur conceived
Everyone was horrified by this unnatural creation (as you
probably are right now), and Minos had Daedalus build an
elaborate kind of maze – the Labyrinth – that could serve as a
prison for the beast
Minos’s son, Androgeos, had been killed by Athenian
citizens; rather than wipe them out, Minos sought to teach
them a lesson, and allowed them instead to sacrifice seven
boys and seven girls each year to the Labyrinth. Nobody
could escape from it – not the children, and not the Minotaur
(who would eventually devour each one)
This continued until Ariadne (the Minotaur’s half-sister) fell
in love with Theseus (remember him?), one of the youths
scheduled to be sacrificed; the two plotted the latter’s
escape. Armed with only a sword and a ball of thread (which
he unspooled as he walked, Theseus heads for the
Labyrinth’s center, where he slays the Minotaur, follows his
thread back to the entrance, and walks out alive (a perfect
parallel to Dante’s journey through the Inferno)
The Centaurs
•
•
•
The Centaurs’ upper bodies are human, but their
lower halves are horse-like. They were often violent or
crude figures in classic myths, and almost always
warriors; modern stories generally soften their
portrayal
They guard Phlegethon with that same warrior zeal,
although their leader, Chiron, was renowned for his
intellect as well as his courage; he was reputed to
have tutored both Hercules and Achilles
Nessus, on the other hand, was killed by Hercules; the
hero trusted him to carry his wife, Deianira, across a
river, but had to kill the Centaur when he tried to
rape her
– He avenged his death immediately by offering his bloodsoaked shirt to Deianira as he died, convincing her that it
would serve as a love charm; when she doubted
Hercules’s devotion, she gave him the shirt, not realizing
that Nessus’s blood would poison him.
•
The Centaurs are therefore both capable of reason
and rage, yet another way for Dante to illustrate how
humans have mixes of virtue and darkness within
themselves
Rogues’ Gallery
•
•
We see the souls as they’re described to us through
Dante’s eyes, and his reaction’s fairly neutral; this
will not always be true of the souls he encounters in
the Seventh Circle
Alexander the Great: Ancient King of Macedonia who
nearly conquered the world (as best he knew it)
– Dante writes favorably of him elsewhere, but punishes
him here
– His main sources of history (such as Lucan’s Pharsalia)
helped fuel Alexander’s reputation as “a cruel,
bloodthirsty man who inflicted great harm on the
world”; how could Dante not acknowledge his deeds, even
if he respects him (as he did for Farinata and Francesca)?
•
Atilla the Hun: A warlord so terrible that he earned
the nickname “Scourge of God,” Dante mistakenly
believed that Atilla had been responsible for
Florence’s destruction during the 5th century
(Dante’s Florence had been built on the ruins of the
old one, which Totila had destroyed)
Rogues’ Gallery
• Dionysius: The Tyrant of Syracuse/Sicily,
infamous for a forty-year rule during
which he treated his citizens extremely
harshly
• Ezzolino da Romano: A hairy and cruellooking Ghibelline, and the son-in-law of
Frederick II; he supposedly had a single
long hair on his nose that would stand
on end when he grew furious, driving
those around him to flee
– Ezzolino was so ruthless (having burned
eleven thousand men to death during one
massacre alone) that Pope Alexander IV
launched a crusade against him
• Opizzo da Este: A Guelf noblemen who
ruled several northern Italian cities
with a cruel hand (notice the pattern?)
Rogues’ Gallery
• Guy de Montfort: An English noble bent on
avenging his father’s death, he slew his cousin
during Mass; the cousin’s heart was placed in a
golden cup, where Nessus says it still rests,
dripping blood into Phlegethon
• Pyrrhus: Either one of two figures; one was a
king who invaded Italy twice in order to attack
the Romans, while the other was the son of
Achilles, a warrior who (according to The
Aeneid) killed a Trojan prince in front of the
royal family during the sacking of Troy before
dragging the king out into public and killing him
as well
• Sextus: The son of Pompey (who waged war on
Caesar in Pharsalia) who wrought havoc on
Italian coasts, earning the nickname “The Pirate
of Sicily”
• Rinier da Cometo & Rinier Pazzo: Famous
highway bandits during the thirteenth century
Canto XIII: Data File
•
•
•
•
Setting: The Seventh Circle, Round Two
Figures: The Harpies, Pier della Vigne, Arcolano da Siena,
Jacomo da Sant’ Andrea, Unknown Florentine Suicide
Punishable Sin: Violence (Against Themselves)
Summary: The poets enter the Wood of the Suicides, a realm
where the souls of those who destroyed themselves (or their
substance) stand locked within trees where Harpies roost,
eating and tearing at their leaves. As the Harpies feed, they
open wounds on the trees’ limbs and leaves…and the wounds
spout blood. As long as the blood flows, the souls can speak;
when the wound seals itself, the souls’ voices are cut off. One
of the trees houses the soul of Pier delle Vigne, a member of
Frederick II’s court, and the poets stop to converse with him
about the way the Wood of the Suicides operates. Then two
souls, Jacomo and Arcolano, dash through the woods, tearing
the foliage as their run from a pack of ravenous dogs. The
dogs catch Jacomo, tear him to pieces, and run off carrying
the pieces in their mouths. After watching the carnage, the
poets realize that the bush that the dogs tore through to get
at the souls is gushing blood from its wounded limbs, and
they talk to the soul of an anonymous suicide trapped within
it.
The Violent Against
Themselves
• Dante defines the Violent Against Themselves as
those who destroy either their physical forms or
the resources they should use instead
• Those who kill themselves are trying to destroy
the substance that God gave them, something
that’s meant to be immortal (therefore defying
God’s will)
– The Suicides will not have their bodies returned to
them during Judgment; instead, the empty shells
will be slung over the trees in the Wood
• In addition to those who killed themselves,
Dante populates the Wood of the Suicides with
the Squanderers
– They’re similar to the Wasters/Prodigal from the
Fourth Circle, but whereas the Prodigal simply
spent money recklessly or needlessly, the
Squanderers actively destroy the things they’ve
always had or have acquired (which Dante defines
as a person’s “substance” for the purposes of
putting them here)
Suicide
•
Just as Dante seemed to adopt a nuanced view of Lust
during Canto V (even if God doesn’t), he seems to take
a similarly ambiguous stance towards the Suicides
– Dante’s favorite writers and teachers essentially covered
the spectrum of views regarding suicide
– Many of the classical Roman writers Dante respected so
deeply either presented or praised suicide as a legitimate
response to personal dishonor or political defeat
– Medieval Christianity, however, stated unequivocally that
suicide was sinful
– Thomas Aquinas argued that suicide not only violates the
self-preservation instinct God gave human beings, but
also usurps control of life and death from God and
Fortune (not to mention the nearly incalculable damage
it causes to a larger community)
•
Dante shows the Suicides real compassion, and he
even puts others (such as Dido) in other circles
instead; it’s hard to tell how deeply he condemns
them
The Punishment
• The Violent Against Themselves have their souls
locked away in the Wood of the Suicides; Harpies
damage them, and they’re largely unable to
speak
• There’s meaning to each element of their
punishment, starting with their non-human
form (they destroyed their human one, so they
can’t have any of the benefits of one)
– As a result, they’re always stationary and trapped,
just as they were unable to escape their darkest
urges
– Their ultimate expression was self-destruction, so
they can now only express themselves as they are
destroyed; as Ciardi puts it, their blood becomes
their voices
– Finally, the Harpies – horrible creatures with the
heads of women and the bodies of birds of prey –
defile or dirty everything they touch; thus their
means of expression is simultaneously defined as
hideous and wrong
Pier della Vigne
•
•
He was an accomplished poet (particularly when it
came to sonnets) and a member of the Sicilian School
As a young, well-educated, and rhetorically gifted
young man, Pier shot through the governmental
hierarchy until he became the judge and official
spokesman for Frederick II’s imperial court (at which
point, his soul implies, he claimed final say over
Frederick’s decisions)
– While he argues that he always served Frederick
faithfully, history is split; while it appears he was guilty
of some corruption, it looks more like he became the
victim of political enemies and peers who envied his
access
– His story is meant to mirror Boethius’s Consolation of
Philosophy, as Pier is given everything only to have it
taken away bit by agonizing bit
– In the end, Pier cannot accept the horrible hand Fortune
dealt him; after being imprisoned and blinded for his
supposed crimes before his release, Pier either smashed
his head against a wall until he died or leapt from a
window in order to smash into the ground beside the
emperor he supposedly betrayed (the evidence from the
end of his life isn’t the clearest)
Jacomo da Sant’ Andrea
• Jacomo da Sant’ Andrea was a particularly
notorious Squanderer who actively committed
senseless acts of violence against his own
property
– For example, he set fire to all of the cottages on his
property in order to provide a welcoming
ceremony for a group of dinner guests, or simply
threw his money into the water during a boat ride
• Jacomo enjoyed a position of some influence; he
was the wealthiest private citizen in Padua, one
of the cities where Ezzolino (from the First
Round of the Seventh Circle) ruled
– In fact, Ezzolino eventually had him executed for
his grievous wastefulness
– He’s torn apart by the dogs because he tore apart
his resources (“substance”) in life
Arcolano da Siena
• Arcolano da Siena belonged to a group of rich
young men called the Spendthrift Club whose
members saw burning through money as a point
of pride (again, different from the Prodigal, who
simply couldn’t help themselves from spending)
• Arcolano reduced himself to poverty fairly
quickly, at which point he joined the Sienese
military in order to deliberately court death
(having decided that living in poverty was
intolerable)
– When his troop appeared to be caught in an
ambush, he could have escaped, but escape meant
returning to the life he abandoned and facing up
to the problems his earlier behavior had caused
– Unable to bring himself to face the consequences
of his actions, Arcolano instead decides to let
himself be killed by the advancing enemy (which is
why Jacomo mocks him for running from the dogs
now that he’s dead)
Unknown Florentine
Suicide
•
•
•
•
•
The anonymous soul that Dante and Virgil discover in
the bush that’s destroyed by the dogs pursuing
Jacomo is supposedly a citizen of Florence who
hanged himself in his own home
The man may actually represent Florence itself, at
least in its original incarnation
Midway through the fifth century, Florence
supposedly began expressing its identity as a newly
Christian city by tearing down the statue of Ares (the
town’s first patron) and replacing it with one of John
the Baptist that was meant to symbolize Man (which
the suicide mentions)
Those of you who remember Ares, the war-god of
Greece, can imagine that he wouldn’t have been
happy; when a wave of factional violence similar to
the one between the Guelfs and Ghibellines (or Blacks
and Whites) tore apart the city, people chalked it up
to the angered god’s wrath
Thus Florence brought destruction needlessly upon
itself, a curse that (as Dante can attest) has never
stopped destroying the city’s substance (its people)
Canto XIV: Data File
•
•
•
•
•
Setting: The Seventh Circle, Second and Third Rounds
Figures: Capaneus
Allusions: Old Man of Crete
Punishable Sin: Violence (here, largely Against God)
Summary: In a compassionate move, Dante gathers up the
branches and leaves the dogs broke off the bush and reattaches them before moving off. He and Virgil reach the
edge of the Wood and look out at a Plain of Burning Sand,
the terrain of the Seventh Circle’s Third Round (where we’ll
spend the next few Cantos). Fire rains down slowly from
above the plain, landing on the sinners being punished
there. The three groups, the Blasphemers (Violent Against
God), Sodomites (Violent Against Nature), and Usurers
(Violent Against Art), are punished in different ways, and
the Blasphemers are the first the poets encounter. One in
particular, Capaneus, still blasphemes God even as he lies
stretched out on the burning sand. The poets continue
walking along the edge of the Wood in order to avoid
burning themselves, eventually reaching a red rill (a kind of
river) that boils out of the wood and over the burning sand.
Virgil seizes the opportunity to discuss the four rivers of
Hell with Dante, and the Canto ends as the poets decide to
walk along the banks of the boiling rill across the Third
Round.
The Punishment
• The Blasphemers are stretched across
the burning plain on their backs (an
allusion to Capaneus, who you’ll study
soon), forced to lie under the falling
flames while being scorched by the sand
below
• The Burning Plain of Sand represents
sterility (using the same technique that
T.S. Eliot used his The Waste Land), for
there’s no fertility/life without water,
and even the rain is made of fire
• Dante seems to be arguing that nothing
natural or positive results from any of
the violence featured here
Phlegethon
• The name means “river of fire,” and it’s
one of the four “rivers” of Hell
(including Acheron, Styx, and Cocytus,
which is currently frozen)
• This is the river of boiling blood that we
saw in the first round, discovering here
that it boils its way through the Wood
and out onto the Plain
• It gets shallower and deeper as it curves
depending on which sinner is supposed
to stand in it
• Virgil will eventually inform Dante that
this blood is the same stream as before,
as well as where it originally comes
from
Capaneus
• One of the giant warrior-kings who
waged war on the ancient city of Thebes,
Capaneus brought about his own demise
during the attack by daring the gods to
protect the citizens
• "Come now, Jupiter, and strive with all
your flames against me! Or are you
braver at frightening timid maidens
with your thunder, and razing the
towers of your father-in-law Cadmus?"
• Before he could even finish speaking,
Zeus (known as “Jupiter” to the
Romans) slays him with a thunderbolt,
and he falls burning from the walls until
he lies outstretched on his back (Dante’s
inspiration)
Old Man of Crete
• We spoke of the different Ages (from
Golden to Iron) during the Gilgamesh
unit, and they return here as
personified by the Old Man of Crete
• His statue features components made
out of each Age-associated substance:
his head is gold, his arms and chest are
silver, his midsection is made of brass, a
foot is made of clay (representing the
Roman Catholic Church), and the rest of
him is made of iron
• The statue is cracked, and tears flow
from the fissure; these tears form the
four rivers in Hell
Canto XV: Data File
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•
•
•
Setting: The Seventh Circle, Third Round
Figures: Ser Brunetto Latini
Punishable Sin: Violence (Against Nature)
Summary: The poets walk along the rill’s banks,
protected from the burning sand by its powers.
They come across a group of the Violent Against
Nature as it runs below them, and one of the
sinners calls out to Dante. Dante recognizes him
– Ser Brunetto Latini, a writer who had
mentored Dante even before Guido entered his
life – and is taken aback to find him here. Latini
talks about Dante with pride, but warns him
that his future in Florence will contain a great
deal of pain. The Canto ends with Latini’s “time
to speak” expiring, and his punishment
reactivates, causing him to skitter across the
burning sand.
Violence Against Nature
• Raffa: “Dante's inclusion of sodomy-understood here as sexual relations
between males but not necessarily
homosexuality in terms of sexual
orientation--is consistent with strong
theological and legal declarations in the
Middle Ages condemning such activities
for being "contrary to nature." In
Dante's day, male-male relations--often
between a mature man and an
adolescent--were common in Florence
despite these denunciations. Penalties
could include confiscation of property
and even capital punishment.”
The Punishment
• The Violent Against Nature run in
wandering packs across the
Burning Plain of Sand, usually in
circles
– The burning sand represents the same
sterility that it did before, as does the
fire
– The endless circles are meant to
symbolize the broken cycle of nature –
a life cycle that doubles back on itself
due to a lack of reproduction
– The wandering behavior results from
having lost God’s guidance
Ser Brunetto Latini
• One of Dante’s most painful encounters
in Hell occurs here, as he barely
recognizes his old mentor and friend
under the damage that’s been done to
him on the Burning Plain
– If Virgil doesn’t want him to show much
compassion for the sinners, he holds back
here
• His work, The Little Treasure, actually
hints at Dante’s future work: a firstperson narrator discovers he’ll have to
live in exile (the Ghibellines having
expelled the Guelfs at this point), and is
so upset that he “lost the great
highway” and went into a “strange
wood” before heading for a mountain
and journeying through strange realms
Ser Brunetto Latini
• Brunetto wasn’t as strong a writer as
Dante would become, but he promoted
the idea – perhaps more than anyone
before Dante, and certain since Cicero –
that eloquence only benefits society
when blended with wisdom
– The Inferno isn’t worthwhile if there aren’t
any ideas at the center of its intricate
structure
• There’s not actually any evidence to
explain why Latini’s in this Round; he
was married with several children
– Many commentators have tried assigning a
substitute sin to Latini, or theorized that his
sin was a symbolic form of Violence Against
Nature (a pursuit of immortality for the body,
for example)
Canto XVI: Data File
• Setting: The Seventh Circle, Third Round
• Figures: Jacopo Rusticucci, Guido Guerra,
Tegghiaio Aldobrandi
• Punishable Sin: Violence (Against Nature,
although Art is also hinted at)
• Summary: The poets draw nearer to the Great
Cliff, which hosts a waterfall that leads down to
the Eighth Circle. Before they can reach it, they
encounter another band of the Violent Against
Nature; three souls break away from the group
this time to approach them. They ask Dante for
news of Florence’s current condition (being
damned, they can only see the future clearly),
and he rages against the climate in his city.
After the three return to their group, the poets
reach the Cliff. Virgil pulls out a cord and tosses
it over the edge of the cliff, and something huge
begins flying towards them from below.
Jacopo / Guido / Tegghiaio
• We’ve heard of the first and third before, as
they were portrayed in Ciacco’s final speech in
Canto III as men who wanted to do good things
and ended up in Hell’s depths anyway
– Oddly, Virgil demands that Dante teach them with great
respect despite their sin – a reversal from his earlier
behavior
– Each of the three – Jacopo, Guido, and Tegghiaio – lived in
Florence, and Dante admired their political sensibilities
before they passed on
• Guido had helped drive the Ghibellines out of
Florence during the final battle in 1266
• Tegghiaio tried giving the Guelfs military
advice, yet was (foolishly) ignored during their
defeat in 1260
• Jacopo was a colleague of Tegghiaio’s, having
risen from a low class to an influential position
Studying Politics
• “O Florence! Your sudden wealth and
your upstart
Rabble, dissolute and overweening,
Already set you weeping in your heart!”
• This doesn’t conclude our political
discussion so much as it reinforces the
dark words Dante’s heard from Ciacco,
Farinato, and Latini
• There’s a weird sense of dramatic irony
here: not only do we know what’s going
to happen to Dante, but so does Dante.
– It’s only “Dante” that’s unaware of his
impending downfall
Canto XVII: Data File
•
•
•
•
•
Setting: The Seventh Circle, Third Round
Figures: Geryon
Allusions: Phaethon, Daedalus, Icarus
Punishable Sin: Violence (Against Art)
Summary: The monster from below arrives at
the cliff: Geryon, the Monster of Fraud. Virgil
negotiates with the beast for safe passage down
the cliff, and sends Dante to look at the Violent
Against Art. These sinners crouch at the edge of
the Burning Plain, separated from the shades of
their fellow beings. Each of them wears a large
money-purse around his neck that bears the
coat-of-arms of his family. After seeing them, he
quickly turns back and heads for Virgil. The
elder poet already sits atop Geryon, and
convinces Dante to climb on; the two make a
terrifying flight down into the Eighth Circle on
the beast’s back.
Violent Against Art
• Dante defines art as the crafts we draw
from nature – our industry, whether it
be practical or creative
• To work hard and honestly while
producing something is therefore to live
in accordance with Nature, and Dante
defines Art/Industry as Nature’s child –
which makes it God’s grandchild
• The Usurers (The Violent Against Art)
weren’t people who burned paintings or
suppressed expression
• Rather, they simply tried to make
money without working for it by
charging people exorbitant interest
rates
Violent Against Art
• This doesn’t seem like that big of a deal
today – have you tried finding a student
loan? – but it was a huge deal in Florence
• Raffa: Based on Biblical passages – fallen
man must live “by the sweat of his
brow” (Genesis 3:19), Jesus' appeal to
his followers to “lend, expecting
nothing in return” (Luke 6:35) –
medieval theologians considered the
lending of money at interest to be
sinful. Thomas Aquinas, based on
Aristotle, considered usury…to be
contrary to nature because ‘it is in
accordance with nature that money
should increase from natural goods and
not from money iMtself.’”
The Punishment
• The sinners are forced to stare with tear-filled
eyes at their purses forever
• They aren’t supposed to look at anything else
because their entire existence revolved around
chasing money-purses – similar to how the
Avaricious and Prodigal push their stones,
although at least those sinners were dealing
badly with their own money (whereas the
Usurers occupy a weird place between the
Avaricious and the Thieves)
• The crest on the purse that clearly identifies
each sinner with his family indicates that they
have brought dishonor to their families, quite
possibly with their families’ permission
• Dante implies that these powerful families built
their wealth on these illicit foundations, and are
therefore undeserving of their influential
positions in society
Geryon
• In classic myth, Geryon was a cruel king
who was slain by Hercules
– Virgil chose to describe him as a “threebodied shade” in The Aeneid, and Dante
appears to have taken that quite literally
• The creature is a crazy mash-up of beast
and human, with a man’s head and
honest face atop a huge, beastly body
covered with pretty and intricate
reptilian scales. He also has fur-covered
legs and paws, with a huge, coiling
scorpion’s tail finishing off his body.
• Geryon’s meant to be a creature of
Fraud (hence the honest face and pretty
scales masking the scorpion’s tail)
Geryon
• His scales are meant to recall the
colorful patterns on a leopard’s hide – a
sign of his realm (he’s a quasi-Threshold
Guardian for the Eighth Circle, which
houses the Sins of the Leopard)
– Dante mentions in Canto XVI that he actually
tried using the cord Virgil tosses over the
edge of the Great Cliff to catch the Leopard
when it blocked his path, but that it was too
quick for him; here, Virgil uses it to tempt the
great beast of Fraud out of hiding
• Geryon can also be associated with “the
sort of factual truth so wondrous that it
appears to be false”
– Some have suggested that Geryon is meant to
recall the incredible journeys of The Divine
Comedy itself; after all, is this truth, or
fiction?
Phaethon
• Dante is (somewhat realistically) completely
terrified by his flight through Hell’s air
• He alludes to two earlier stories of mortals
taking flight by unnatural means (this is
centuries before the airplane, obviously) with
terrible consequences
• The first is Phaethon, a figure from Ovid’s
Metamorphosis who sought to confirm that he
was the son of Apollo by seizing the sunchariot’s reins (against his father’s advice)
• He proved unable to control the horses, and they
scorched the sky as they tore through the
atmosphere
• Forced to choose between saving the world and
sparing Apollo’s son, Jupiter slew Phaethon with
a thunderbolt
Daedalus and Icarus
• The second story – an equally tragic one, and
also from Ovid’s Metamorphosis – involves
Daedalus, an inventor we encountered earlier in
the story of the Minotaur
• Daedalus and his son, Icarus, were imprisoned in
a tall tower on the edge of the island of Crete. In
order to escape, Daedalus collected the feathers
of birds that flew into the tower and bound
them with wax and thread into wings
• He built a pair for himself and a pair for Icarus,
warning the boy that the wax would melt if he
flew too close to the sun
• But Icarus, overcome with joy, ignores his
father’s advice (just as Phaethon did) and
streaks into the sky; his wax melts, and the boy
plummeted to his death in the sea before his
father can reach him
• Daedalus is forced to soar on towards land,
mourning his son all the way
In Conclusion
• The final allusions to Phaethon
and Icarus serve as indicators that
the hardest part of Dante’s
journey lies ahead, and that
there’s a danger in getting too
close to the heat
• Fascinatingly, Dante continues to
regard many of the Circle’s
denizens with either sympathy or
pity, and Virgil no longer seems to
mind – not at all what one would
expect from someone traveling
through the land of Violence
• Now on to the final sin: Fraud